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“No.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re going into work on a Sunday,” Lake muttered. “And on the first day of the year.”
“I have work to do,” Grady said. He realised that Lake didn’t have his bracelets on, which meant they were somewhere at Grady’s place too.
“Don’t you have holidays or something?” Lake asked.
“Some of us do.” It was a rotating thing each year who had what holidays off. Most of his fellow detectives would be back on the third. None of the detectives he worked with had taken any extra days this year, with their workload the way it was. “Holidays” didn’t work the same way for them as they did for everyone else. And Grady had nothing else to do, now that he’d been left by his boyfriend like mouldy old bread on the side of the road. Work helped keep his mind occupied.
Grady grunted. “Okay.” He had filled his personal socialisation quota a thousandfold already for the year, and he hadn’t even closed out the first day yet. “Nice to see you again,” he said gruffly to the trio still watching them from the front steps. “Be careful on the drive home,” he told Lake.
Lake was still watching him as he turned the corner and drove out of sight.
Lakeshookhisheadand flicked the engine of the Black Hawk off, waiting for the rotors to slow to a stop and the noise to die down before he turned to Zach, who was in the co-pilot seat. “It’s still got that weird vibration,” he said once they could hear themselves think. “I don’t know what’s doing it. Could be the main rotor?”
“They took the bird out yesterday and didn’t mention anything,” Zach replied, moving out of the cockpit. “I think you’re imagining it.”
“I’m not,” Lake said confidently. He knew when his baby was in good shape, and this wasn’t it. He knew something was wrong with it, knew it in his gut.
Zach let out a breath as he stepped off the helicopter and then turned, lifting one arm up to brace himself on the metal above the open cabin doors, his muscles flexing. “All right. I’ll check the alignment, see if there’s any erosion? Could just need a few parts replaced from wear and tear.” He tapped his fingers on the metal. “Do you need to take it in the air today?”
“No, it was only scheduled for the systems check.” Lake climbed out of the cockpit and jumped down beside Zach. He stretched, his camo top lifting. He’d already been in the air four hours that day and then another two dealing with the Hawk that was quickly becoming a pain in his ass.
Zach slapped the metal. “All right. I’ll check her out tomorrow morning. So,” Zach continued as they walked back towards the hangar, moving around other pilots and engineers hurrying to their next task. “That cop...”
“Oh, here we go.”
“What? You go home with a total stranger, spend the night inhisbed—emphasis on his bed, man—and you expect none of us to be curious about it?”
Lake knew he shouldn’t have mentioned the fact that Grady’s place only had one bed, and they’d shared. It wasn’t that fucking unusual. Because they were both guys, they couldn’t just share a bed without it meaning something? “I already got this interrogation. I’m not looking for a repeat.” Thankfully, the hours spent on Grady’s couch had meant that his headache had been almost non-existent while Avery, Felix, and Zach had asked him a million questions. Eventually they’d realised that nothing had, in fact, happened, and whatever gossip they were looking for wasn’t anywhere to be found. But Jesus Christ. Anyone would think they didn’t have an interesting enough life already.
“You gonna see him again?”
Lake was, actually. He had to give Grady his shirt back, and his own shirt and his bracelets were still at Grady’s place. Since he knew that the guy worked with Quinn, finding what precinct he worked at had been relatively easy, since of the men that Quinn was dating was a former soldier and friend of Lake’s. At least Peyton was better at not asking questions than Zach was.
“You know,” he said, instead of answering Zach’s question, “I don’t think you guys understand the whole ‘I didn’t sleep with him’ part. He has bits I’m not interested in.” The thought of another guy’s dick, in a sexual context, wasweird.He liked Grady, and they’d had fun—anddamn,he knew how to cook nachos—but he wasn’t bi-curious or whatever the fuck they called it.
“All right, touchy.”
“I’m nottouchy.” Was it a crime to have friends now? Grady wasn’t his first male friend—could they be called friends now? They’d bonded, right? And he’d never wanted to sleep with Felix or Zach. Or any of the other soldiers that he’d made friends with over the years. “I never wanted to see your naked ass. His isn’t any different.” It was probably a good thing he hadn’t told anyone about the midnight kiss. None of them would understand that it hadn’t been a sexual thing either.
“I still think you peeked at our year-nine camp.”
“You ran naked through the dining hall,” Lake said with a snort. “Everyonelooked, man. Someone should have told you that your scrawny fourteen-year-old ass wasn’t impressive.”
Zach grinned. “Felix thought it was impressive.”
“He’s always had terrible judgement.”
“He picked me and Avery; I think his taste is impeccable.”
“You keep thinking that.” He absently tugged at the thin chain necklace around his neck as they stopped at the entrance to the meeting rooms that were connected to the hangar. He was supposed to have left it in his locker because it wasn’t part of the uniform. As long as he kept it hidden and stashed it later it would be fine. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been caught wearing it. “I have a meeting about the training exercise we’re doing in July. The search-and-rescue op in Wollemi. You in that?”
“Thankfully, no. But have fun.”
“Thanks,” Lake said dryly.
The military sure loved its fucking meetings. No one had warned him about that. Being in the air as a pilot was the most exhilarating thing he’d ever experienced, and he loved every moment of it, had worked hard to rise through the ranks to get to where he was. No one had told him that to get there, he had to sit through meeting after meeting after meeting.
